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Amanda and Sabrina at Mansion at Mountain Lakes

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Amanda and Sabrina at Mansion at Mountain Lakes

Posted on December 16, 2022 by New Jersey Bride

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How did you meet?
We are both teachers and met at work. Amanda had been working in the building for several years and Sabrina started working there in 2015. We were friends for a few years before we started dating in 2019. As time went on, we realized that our friendship was turning into something more. This was Sabrina’s first same-sex relationship, but she knew this was what she wanted. Our friends and family have shown us so much love and support. We love to visit new places, try new things, and have fun. Like Amanda’s sister said in her speech at the wedding…while waking up next to, working all day with, working after school with, and then going home to the same person every day is a nightmare for most people, we love it and wouldn’t want it any other way!

How did you get engaged?
Proposal from Amanda’s Perspective: One night in January 2021, while I was scrolling on Facebook, I saw an ad for a mystery picnic. Sabrina and I like to go on adventures, so we looked into the idea. They had a few options and one was in Brooklyn on Valentine’s Day. The way that it worked was that the company would send you clues to lead you to a mystery destination to have a picnic. Along the way, the clues would lead you to different locations to pick up food and drinks for the picnic. We thought this would be a cute and unique way to spend Valentine’s Day. A few days after booking the picnic, I got the idea that this would be a great place to propose! I messaged the company with my idea and asked them if they could provide me with the itinerary of the day ahead of time so that I would know what the plan was (and where we would end up) so I could coordinate what the day would look like. They told me it would end in Prospect Park and told me the street we would be walking down to enter the park. While this was helpful, it also left a lot up for questioning! Sabrina had one request for the day that the proposal happened – that there was a photographer. This would be simple for a situation if you were getting engaged in a restaurant or a backyard. In the middle of a park, it was hard to know exactly where we were going to end up. It took a lot of planning and communicating! For Sabrina’s 27th birthday, I had given her 27 gifts, one to open on each day leading up to her birthday. On each gift, I attached a scratch-off lottery ticket. Since then, I have given her scratch-offs on other occasions too. I wanted to propose in a unique spot, but also in a unique way. I found proposal scratch-off tickets online that say “Will You Marry Me” when you scratch off the last box on the card. I knew this was a great idea and she wouldn’t be suspecting it! Aside from planning the actual engagement day, we were also waiting for our engagement rings to be ready. Mine was being custom-made and was taking longer than we expected. As far as Sabrina knew, mine was not ready yet and when we did get engaged, we wanted both of our rings to be ready. Believe it or not, my ring ended up being ready THE DAY BEFORE at 9:30AM! The days leading up to the proposal were stressful for a few reasons. Now we may have been silly to go on a picnic in February, but the weather really almost ruined all the plans. It snowed a decent amount the day before! We almost didn’t go! Thankfully Sabrina was still willing to still go on a picnic in the snow. We planned to bundle up and if it got too cold we said we would figure it out. Part of me felt like she knew what was going on for this reason alone! On the day of the proposal, February 14, 2021, I was anxious but excited. I had hired a photographer who was extremely helpful and flexible in working with me to figure out how to find us once we got into the park to set up our picnic. My mom, sister, her sister Ashley, and her two friends, Nicole and Nicole, came disguised in wigs. We followed all the clues and as we got closer to the park Megan texted me and said something like “sit at the picnic table with the branch on it and have Sabrina face the garbage can”. They had scoped out a table that would photograph well and held it for us until we arrived. In my head, I was so nervous because as I was walking there were so many tables. I had to find this specific table and not make it look weird that I was going for this certain one! Somehow I pulled it off. We set up our picnic and laid our all the food we collected from the stores along the way. Before we started to eat I told Sabrina that I wanted to exchange Valentine’s Day gifts. We took them out and I handed her my card. (I was secretly shaking.) She read the card and was about to put the scratch-off aside to do it another time, but I tossed a penny to her and told her to do it now. As she was doing it I pulled the ring out of my jacket and when she got to the bottom row, that was my cue, and the cue for everyone else to come close. As I was kneeling I could hear and feel everyone running closer behind me because the snow was crunching. I couldn’t tell you a word of what I said that day, but I do remember that she said “YES!” … and that she was “just supposed to eat cheese!” All the planning, anxiety, and excitement was worth it. We never got to eat the food, but we did get to take a beautiful photoshoot and spend a day together that we will never forget!

The proposal from Sabrina’s Perspective: The entire week before our mystery picnic, we were contemplating not going. Why would we pick to go on a picnic in the middle of the winter, knowing that it would be cold and there would be snow on the ground? Since it was Valentine’s Day and this was the only thing we had planned, I told Amanda I would still go. We bundled up and began our journey. The mystery picnic gave us clues to follow to find different stores that had our food. The mystery end location brought us to Prospect Park. I was starving at this point and just wanted to eat and get back to the car because I couldn’t even feel my toes from the cold. We laid out all of the food on the picnic table and as soon as I went to take my first bite of food, Amanda immediately wanted to exchange gifts. She gave me a card first and when I opened it, there were scratch-offs inside. This was not a surprise to me because scratch-offs were usually involved for every birthday, holiday, or special date. I put them back in the card and set them aside to scratch later. She was very adamant about me scratching it right then and there, especially because she threw a penny at me to do it. Not only was I starving still, but I also thought I was scratching off a losing ticket, making me a bit more irritated. At this point, I was ready to throw the penny back at Amanda. I got to the bottom row, the very last box, and started noticing there was no number being revealed. Instead the words “Will You Marry Me?” appeared. I was absolutely speechless and shaking. All I remember was Amanda getting down on one knee, people running up around us, and myself saying the easiest “YES!” I have ever said in my life. The rest of the day was absolutely perfect. From being surprised by my sister Ashley, my two best friends Nicole and Nicole, Amanda’s sister and mom at the picnic, a beautiful photo shoot taken in Prospect Park, and a party waiting for us when we got home. There is not a single moment from that day that I would ever change and I couldn’t have been happier to begin planning our forever!

Details of the day!
Our vision was “rustic elegance”. We originally wanted sage as our main color to focus on. We love eucalyptus and greenery and wanted our bridesmaid dress color to be that as well. When we initially looked at bridesmaid dresses from several different designers, we had a hard time finding a shade we liked. Many were giving us “Statue of Liberty” vibes. We ended up going in a completely different direction with the color “Rust” by Bill Levkoff. We were weary at first to do a burnt orange color in the summer, worried it would be too much of a “fall” color, but we decided it was more like a summer sunset and went with it! We used Bloomery Flower Studio for our flowers and they completely understood our rustic floral vision. We wanted lots of whites, greenery, and little pops of orange to bring in our rust color. Sabrina wanted all-white flowers and greenery in her bouquet, while Amanda wanted a cascading bouquet with whites, some blue, and orange flowers, bringing some color into hers. Sabrina has a Cricut, so we were able to add a lot of personal touches to the day. While it was time-consuming, many people mentioned to us that all of the small details and pieces of “us” were felt throughout each space and part of the night. We made our seating chart from a ladder and flowers that Amanda’s aunt helped us decorate and we created wood block signs personalized with meaningful love song quotes that lined the aisle at our ceremony. We also had a specific vision for our centerpieces. We wanted tripod centerpieces made from tree branches that our florist crafted with beautiful flowers. For favors, we gave our guests something that is both meaningful to us, but also something we knew no one would leave without opening…Scratch offs! Each guest received scratch-off tickets in an envelope with a “Lucky in Love” sticker, along with a shiny lucky penny from us. Everyone seemed to have fun with our favor!

Why did you choose your venue?
As soon as we walked into The Mansion at Mountain Lakes, we knew right away that it was going to be our venue. We had toured other places prior to visiting, but as soon as we pulled up outside, we felt a different energy right away that wasn’t comparable to any other place. Throughout our tour, each room we walked into took our breath away. It was also very important to us to have a venue that only had one wedding at a time and having the entire place to ourselves was a dream. The Bellhall Grand Ceremony space was the perfect rustic indoor space we were looking for. We loved the ceilings, walls, and barn wood doors. We could immediately picture our wedding day pictures in front of the doors! Everything from the bridal suite to the ceremony space, cocktail hour rooms, and the ballroom, plus everything in between fit our vision perfectly. As we walked down the stairs to the ballroom from the bridal suite during our tour Amanda remembers getting emotional and thinking, “This is it!” We had another venue tour booked right after we left, which we called and canceled. The next day, we called the Mansion and chose our date!

What was on your menu?
The food at the Mansion was delicious and we still have guests telling us how much they loved it! Amanda is a vegetarian, so it was important to have great vegetarian options, while also accommodating all guests. Our cocktail hour had a beautiful antipasto display with meats, cheeses, breads, and dips. Passed hors d’oerves included chicken and waffles with maple reduction, filet mignon crostini with boursin cheese and red onion marmalade, lobster risotto balls with creamy roasted tomato lobster sauce, Maryland crabcakes with spicy remoulade sauce, grilled shrimp brochette with sweet chili glaze, baked brie and raspberry jam en croute, and sweet corn fritters with ranch-chipotle sauce. Our hot chafing stations included fried calamari, eggplant rollatini, paella, and short ribs giambotta. We also had a pasta station that had both penne and mini raviolis with either a roasted garlic cream sauce or vodka sauce. For our carving station we chose loin of pork stuffed with spinach, roasted peppers, and asiago, and grilled flank steak with wild mushrooms. Our specialty stations included a seafood station with littleneck clams, blue-point oysters, seafood salad, shrimp scampi, and clams oreganata, and an Asian station with general Tso’s chicken, vegetable lo mien, fried dumplings, pork fried rice, and beef stir fry. Our cocktail hour filled up two rooms in the venue and we could not have been more pleased with it! For dinner, all guests were served the Grand Mansion salad, which was mixed greens with candied walnuts, dried cranberries, shaved pecorino romano, with white balsamic dressing. For dinner, they had a choice of pan seared filet mignon with a red wine demi-glaze, stuffed chicken with spinach and asiago cheese with a lemon velouté, or salmon with dijon mustard beurre blanc – white wine reduction, shallots, butter, and finished with dijon mustard. The vegetarian option was a vegetable Wellington with grilled fruit and vegetables. For dessert, we had family style platters with cannoli’s, chocolate covered strawberries, mini cheesecakes, mini carrot cake, eclairs, napoleons, fruit tarts, chocolate mousse tarts, and more. Besides everything the Mansion provided us, we also got a donut truck for guests called “Glazed and Confused”. They provided mini donuts for our guests to enjoy! The flavors were Funfetti- vanilla glaze with rainbow sprinkles, S’mores- chocolate glaze, graham cracker, and marshmallow sauce, Salted caramel pretzel- caramel glaze, sea salt, and crushed pretzel pieces, Hole-e Cannoli- cannoli cream, crushed cannoli shells, chocolate glaze, and powdered sugar, and French toast- maple glaze, cinnamon dust, and graham cracker. Our wedding cake was from A Little Cake bakery. The top tier was the “anniversary tier” with red velvet and cream cheese filling, while the other tiers were vanilla and old fashion fudge cake with cannoli and chocolate mousse filling. Everything was so delicious!

All about your gown!
Amanda knew from the start that she did not want a typical wedding dress – she knew she wanted a jumpsuit… I looked all over and called many boutiques, and right on Staten Island at the Bridal Boutique, they had one jumpsuit available in the store – Maggie Sottero’s “Milan” jumpsuit. I made an appointment, went in with my sister to try it on, and that was it! I added the Maggie Sottero “Gretchen” overskirt because I liked the versatility it gave to the look. I had so much fun taking pictures before the wedding and I took the skirt off and switched from my heels into personalized pearl Converse sneakers during the reception. I loved it! I didn’t tell anyone about the jumpsuit until they saw me on the day of the wedding. Everyone thought I was wearing a dress, but this was much more “me” and I am pretty sure it was also much more comfortable! Sabrina’s dress was Allure Bridal style C568. The style was a fit and flare that was off-shoulder with an open illusion back and full train… As soon as I tried it on, I felt instantly that it was the perfect dress for me. It had flowers and silver accenting from top to bottom. This was the fourth dress I tried on and I didn’t want to take it off! It was “the one” for so many reasons, but mostly because I could see myself on my wedding day wearing this dress as I said “I do.”

What was your favorite moment?
This is a hard question to answer because the whole entire day was amazing, but there were a few moments that stand out…

Amanda: I went in the bridal suite with my sisters, mom, and my niece first, so when it was time for Sabrina to switch and have her time in the bridal suite, I asked my sister if I should just show Sabrina’s bridal party my outfit fast because they were going to end up seeing me anyway, because at that point I was dressed. They had no idea I was wearing a jumpsuit, they thought I was going to be wearing a dress because I would not talk about my “dress” or show anyone and never revealed any details. Our photographer loved this idea and immediately wanted to do a first look with the bridal party and had me go behind the changing curtain in the suite and had the girls all come in. I stood there and I was literally shaking more than before I walked down the aisle! When I opened the curtain, everyone was shocked and loved it! It made me even more excited to see Sabrina and see her reaction. I couldn’t wait to see what she was wearing!

Sabrina: When you have two brides, it’s very hard to avoid seeing each other during hair and makeup, but we made it happen! All morning, we dodged each other and managed to wait until our first look to see each other for the first time when we were at the venue outside. The entire morning felt like it was taking forever to see Amanda. I had an idea in my mind as to what she might look like, but it didn’t matter, I just wanted to see her already! When we were both finally ready, they brought her outside first and then me. They placed us back to back and had us hold hands. I remember Amanda telling me not to turn and look in the reflection of the glass so I didn’t see anything. It was getting so close! I just wanted to turn around. When they finally had us turn, I was so excited. She looked beautiful, more than I ever could have imagined.

One detail you couldn’t live without?
Amanda: One detail that I absolutely couldn’t live without was not only to have both of my parents walk me down the aisle but to also have the opportunity to dance with each of them during the reception. My mom chose the song “When You Need Me” by Bruce Springsteen to dance with me to. My father and I danced to “Sweet Child O’ Mine” by Guns N’ Roses. Both dances were very meaningful to me and I am grateful I chose to share those moments with both of my parents.

Sabrina: One detail that I absolutely couldn’t live without was all the different ways I incorporated my father into our wedding. My father passed away when I was 16 so it was extremely important to me to have him as a part of my day. I included his picture on our memory table and in our ceremony, we had a memorial chair with blue flowers and a hat that said “Father of the Bride” that he received as a gift for my sister’s wedding. On my bouquet, I had a charm with his picture and handwriting that said “Love, Daddy”, and charms on my shoes from my best friend that said “Dad, take this walk with me.” When I danced with my mother, I also had my sweet 16 dance with my father playing on the screens behind us. All of these touches made me feel like he was still a huge part of our day.

Did anything go wrong?
No matter how much planning you do, it is always possible that something may go wrong. The good thing is, 99% of the time, no one will ever really know except you (maybe not even you!) and others in charge of the details! We had a floating candle issue (they weren’t lighting) right before our wedding was about to start. We had floating candles in vases all over the ballroom. The staff at our venue took over fixing the problem and our guests never knew that we almost didn’t have centerpieces because they got them to work before the reception started! The staff at the Mansion at Mountain Lakes, plus all of our vendors, helped make our day run very smoothly. We couldn’t have asked for anything more!

First dance song?
Our first dance song was “I Get to Love You” by Ruelle. When we heard this song for the first time, we both had tears in our eyes. For almost a year, we couldn’t even listen to it without crying! It describes our relationship perfectly.

Any advice for future brides?
Our advice to other brides is to try your best to keep up with your planning and make sure all of your details and wishes are taken care of. On the day of the wedding, allow others to do it for you (that’s their job!!) so that you both can enjoy the day. Make a shot list ahead of time and send it to your photographer to make sure all of the pictures you want are taken the day of. You will never remember in the moment to take all the pictures you want to. We also made a point to make time to eat together in the bridal suite during cocktail hour. Make sure you eat! It is easy to get lost in the craziness of your wedding day, but take a step back and take in every moment you can together. It goes by so fast!

Honeymoon Location?
For our honeymoon, we planned a trip to Costa Rica. We will be visiting La Fortuna and Tamarindo so we can experience both the rainforest/volcano area and the beach! Some excursions we have planned are zip lining, hanging bridges, repelling down waterfalls, ATVs, and more! We are very excited!

the details

Reception Location

The Mansion at Mountain Lakes

Photographer

Red Bank Studio

Officiant

Ben Hickey

Bride’s Gown

Amanda's Jumpsuit & Skirt: Maggie Sottero / Sabrina's Dress: Allure Bridals

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Amanda and Sabrina at Mansion at Mountain Lakes

the details

Reception Location

Photographer

Officiant

Bride’s Gown

Bride’s Shoes

Bridesmaid Dresses

Hair

Makeup

Flowers

Cake

Invites

Music

Videographer

Wedding Planner

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